DELRAY BEACH -- Defense contractor Aero-Dri Corp. deliberately jeopardized the health of city residents by dumping hazardous chemicals that seeped into the city`s drinking water, city officials charged in a lawsuit on Thursday.

In the suit, filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, Delray Beach seeks from the company all expenses incurred as a result of the contamination, as well as unspecified punitive damages.

``It`s to punish premeditated wrongdoing,`` Mayor Doak Campbell said of the request for punitive damages. ``It`s the court`s way of punishing a company so that it won`t happen again.``

City Attorney Herb Thiele estimated that Delray Beach had spent $1 million and would spend another $1 million to purify water from the tainted wells and pay other related expenses.

Delray Beach wants the court to force Aero-Dri to clean the city`s well field and to provide safe water until the cleanup has been completed.

The suit names seven defendants, including Aero-Dri and its parent companies, and owners of the land leased by Aero-Dri on Southwest 10th Street, just east of Interstate 95.

Eight counts against the defendants include an allegation that the firm violated the Florida Resource Recovery and Management Act by improperly disposing of cancer-causing chemicals. Other allegations include violation of nuisance laws and negligence.

Carl Wurtz, a vice president for Aero-Dri`s parent company, Davey Compressor, stated emphatically from his Cincinnati headquarters on Thursday that the pollution ``was not intentional.``

Aero-Dri attorney Doug Halsey could not be reached for comment.

Nancy Graham, attorney for landowners Lawrence and John Razete, and for defendant L&J Enterprises, said she may file a motion to dismiss charges that she said did not apply to her clients.

Since December, Aero-Dri officials have been negotiating a cleanup plan with the state Department of Environmental Regulation. But the two sides have been unable to agree on whether the company should be responsible for all cleanup costs on city property.

Department attorney Jack Chisolm said from Tallahassee on Thursday that Palm Beach County environmental officials had requested legal action against Aero-Dri, but he is awaiting word from higher agency officials on whether to proceed.

This week, Aero-Dri began preliminary testing of soil and water on its property and near city wells to help Aero-Dri`s engineers and environmental regulation department officials determine the exact location and magnitude of the contamination.

Groundwater samples collected at Aero-Dri on Oct. 30 showed 531,000 parts per billion of tetrachloroethene, the lawsuit said. The Florida drinking water standard is 3 parts per billion.

Aero-Dri uses tetrachloroethene and similar chemicals to clean grease from air compressors used by the military to start jet engines.

The suit said the chemicals are ``highly toxic`` and destroy liver cells and cause cancer of the liver.

And the suit claims that from 1981 to October 1987, Aero-Dri dumped the spent degreasers on the ground and that chemicals migrated to an underground stream that feeds the city`s well field one-quarter of a mile away. Wells there were closed in December because of high levels of the contaminant.

Before the wells were shut, untreated water in one contained more than 20 times the drinking-water maximum of tetrachloroethene, city tests showed.

``That`s an awful lot of pollutants ... that are continuing to percolate into the aquifer we draw on,`` City Attorney Thiele said on Thursday.

Even after being diluted at the treatment plant with water from other city wells in late August, 4.4 parts per billion of the chemical was found in water that traveled to city taps -- more than the 3 parts per billion standard for drinking water.

Scientists estimate that at that legal maximum, if 1 million people drank 2 quarts of water each day for 70 years, one would develop cancer from the water.

In late February, City Manager Walter Barry imposed strict water conservation measures for residents and businesses.

DELRAY`S LAWSUIT

The suit filed by Delray Beach against Aero-Dri and related companies on Thursday includes these allegations:

-- Possibly continuous dumping over seven years of hazardous solvents that seeped into the source for city drinking water.

-- Failure to dispose of used solvents at a permitted disposal site.

-- Failure to provide safe drinking water supply while wells were being contaminated.

-- Unlawful disposal of highly toxic waste solvent, which constitutes willful misconduct and entitles the city to recover punitive damages.